Portable Church Services By Donald Grey Barnhouse
D WIGHT L. MOODY will preach cn Sunday morning to a group of lumberjacks in upper Michi gan. Charles Haddon Spurgeon will preach on Sunday afternoon in a school- house in the mountains of Virginia. Charles Wesley will preach four times next Sunday in the state penitentiary in California, repeating the same service for different groups of prisoners. Dr. R. A. Torrey will speak next Sunday in the parlor of John Farmer, R.F.D. No. 6, Pea Creek, North Fork, Ozark Coun ty, Arkansas, at 11 a.m. Such announcements as these, multi plied a thousandfold, will soon be cur rent in various parts of our country, and eventually in many other parts of the world. Complete Portable Church Services on tape, with the finest of music and the greatest sermons of history, are about to be made available at nominal cost to all who can make use of them. Three or four years ago the writer heard a home missionary remark that there were 30,000 small church build ings in the United States in which no services were being held^ The state ment set him to thinking. He simply did not believe it could be true. He began to make inquiries and found that it was an actual fact. He discovered, furthermore, that there were as many more small communities without church services which were also without church buildings. There are in continental United States towns with a population of as many as 500 which have had no Protestant church service in twenty- five years. Home missionary leaders re port that such is the case for many com munities in southern Idaho and eastern Oregon. Something must be done about it. In this age of mechanical marvels it seemed as if it must be possible to transcribe complete c h u r c h services which could be played back on a simple device which could be operated by any one. The writer went to a group of Christian friends and laid the burden before them. They gave five thousand dollars for a study of the problem, and one of the group became so increasingly convinced of the great need and the possibility of meeting it in this way that she brought in another thousand dollars the next day. A young Christian layman turned from selling oil to take hold of the project and began to work out the de tails. First of all it was decided that tape should be used rather than cum bersome and fragile phonograph rec ords. At the time the longest tape re cording available was fifteen minutes. Then a manufacturer produced a thirty- Page Ten
minute tape. We planned to make one church service with two tapes. But within a short time, they developed a sixty-minute tape, and now there is a tape which can be' played for an hour down one side and another hour back the other side, with two complete serv ices on one tape. But would people be interested in Por table Church Services? Were the fine Christian programs already on the ra dio meeting the need? There is no doubt that there has been great and effective blessing through radio messages, but there is no substitute for the gathering together of believers in a group. As rural people were questioned, they be gan to be enthusiastic. The program was tried out in many places. A home missionary in one of the mountainous counties of the Southeast made a study of his county and discovered thirty- eight places where Portable Church Services could be used from week to week. A chaplain in a great peniten tiary, which has more than 2000 prison ers and one Protestant service a Sun day, said that he could have a trusty play the service at two other periods and reach men who were not free at the regular hour of his service. A large city parish said that it could use eight services for the establishment of branch es in new housing developments. One of the deacons, who would hesitate to go out and preach regularly in such a branch work, would be quite happy threading a tape and presiding at the meetings. When it had been thus established that the technical problems could be solved and that the need was so mani fest, the problem of making up services to meet the need remained. The question of the sermons was, of course, the most difficult. The greatest sermons of all time are available in print, but they must be read effectively. A search was made for men who could read well, whose voices were resonant, and who yet had spiritual comprehen sion of the subject matter and were able to “ lift” a sentence and to “ put over” the message. The late Dr. Walter Maier, of the Lutheran Hour, was to have been the voice of Martin Luther on the Por table Church Services. One of the last letters Dr. Maier ever wrote was an enthusiastic approval of the plan which he felt would exalt Christ and reach the needs of multitudes in rural com munities. He agreed to undertake the editing of a dozen sermons by Luther, to recast them for modern listening, and to read them for recording. Unfor tunately he was called home before he could undertake the actual work which was then committed to a young Missouri
Synod Lutheran pastor who is at pres ent going on with the work. Many voices have been tested, and continuing tests are being made to find just the voices to make the sermons chosen live again to move the hearts of men. One of the outstanding musicians of the country was secured as musical di rector of the services. Robert Elmore, born in India of Baptist missionary parents, formerly of the music faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, now organist of Holy Trinity Church in Philadelphia and of the famed Phila delphia Orchestra, is responsible for the musical portions of the programs. Scores of preludes, offertories, and post- ludes have been recorded from the great organ music of the past and present. A consecrated choral group has befen assembled to play the part of the con gregation for the recording of hymns in which those who meet to listen shall join in the singing. A fine library of special music is be ing built up. In addition to the organ music of Robert Elmore, many piano meditations have been recorded by Jorge Bolet, who has played concertos with Toscanini and the New York Philhar monic, with Muench and the Boston Symphony, and with many other great orchestras. All of the solos of George Beverly Shea, put out by Singspiration records, have been added to the Portable Church Services Library. Plans are be ing made to record some of the major choral groups of the country for the great anthems of the church. In order to play these services it is necessary to have a machine that will play plastic tape on reels seven inches in diameter at a speed of 3 ^ " per second. Anyone who has access to such a machine can obtain the services for as little as three dollars a week. Por table Church Services, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is prepared to furnish a machine as well as the tapes for five dollars a week on a year’s subscription basis. These services are now ready for dis tribution. They cannot succeed alone. In every place there must be at least one person who is devoted to the Lord and who wishes to be the center of a missionary work for Him. That person will be responsible for getting people together to hear the service or for car rying the service where there are those who will listen. We have no doubt, of course, that these machines can ever supplant the living voice or the tender heart of the pastor. But our Lord did tell us that there were sheep without a shepherd, and our work is seeking to reach them. Anyone who is led into this work may begin at once. T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker